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My sky-high life – Cornelia

How quickly time passes – in fact, it simply flies by. This statement sums up my life over the past six months, during which I have been taking off and flying away several times per week.

Since August of last year my life has adapted to a whole new rhythm and style. I no longer live from one weekend to the next but from one monthly work schedule to the next instead. I have been a SWISS flight attendant since last summer and my new place of work is up in the sky. Time no longer hurries by – it flies past me at high speed. And I enjoy every second.

If someone had said to me three years ago that I would one day be a flight attendant, I would have simply smiled at them and shook my head. Sure, sliding down the emergency evacuation chute in training sounded exciting back then. But I didn’t want people to regard me as little more than a “trolley dolly”. However, such prejudicial attitudes can be found anywhere. The disparaging term “pen pusher” which is often used in reference to office workers and secretaries isn’t any better. And I was a “pen pusher” myself in my previous professional life, when I was kept on the go by the SMI (Swiss Market Index), my bosses and anxious customers. Today, they have been replaced by flight schedules, airplanes and, of course, passengers from all over the world. My time as an assistant in the field of private banking was good and interesting in its own way. But after nine years in the banking sector the time had come for me to seek a new challenge away from the world of finance.

It all started two years ago exactly. At that point I was certain my future lay in journalism. I had always enjoyed writing and had just passed the entrance exam to study journalism and corporate communications. One day I was sitting in the train with a group of fellow aspiring communicators when, out of the blue, a young woman asked me the crucial question: “Have you ever thought of becoming a flight attendant?” To which I replied: “What makes you ask?” The woman, herself a former SWISS flight attendant, said: “You look like one.” That was the beginning of my airline story. And although it was not as spectacular a start as that of some of my colleagues – who had dreamed of becoming a flight attendant since childhood or had grown up next to Runway 28 and can identify every type of aircraft from a distance – I don’t regret taking the advice given to me on the spur of the moment by the young woman in the train. And now here I am, ready to tell you about my life and times as a cabin crew member.